Random ponderings on the state of the Universe

Main menu

Post navigation

Spotlight Author Blog Tour: Meet Kim Cox!

I’m excited to be a part of RRBC’s Spotlight Author Blog Tour! This week’s featured author is Kim Cox, who writes in several genres, one or more of which is likely to be on your list of favorites. If you’re a fan of the TV series, “The Ghost Whisperer”, then her Lana Malloy series is just what you’ve been waiting for! Keep reading to learn more about Kim and this intriguing series.

Lana Malloy Paranormal Mystery Series

In the LANA MALLOY PARANORMAL MYSTERY SERIES, Lana Malloy is a psychic, private investigator who is on a mission to help the dearly departed even when they don’t realize they need help. With each book, Lana’s psychic abilities grow. As she’s pushed to new limits, she learns she’s capable of much more than she knew.

In book one,HAUNTED HEARTS, Lana sets out to solve her first case—the twenty-year old cold-case and double murder of her great aunt and her great aunt’s fiancé. If she succeeds, they’ll spend eternity together; if she can’t, they’ll be stuck as Haunted Hearts. With the help of the ghosts and a new love interest, she is able to find the murderer.

In book two,GET OUT OR DIE, the success of Lana’s first case has spread throughout the local Charleston area and her business is booming. At one pro-bono job, Lana helps a widow communicate with her late husband where she learns of a frightening new ability—an ability that could give the next spirit, an angry ghost, the upper hand if she’s not careful.

In book three, THE WEDDING CRASHER, Lana is on her honeymoon in Gatlinburg, Tennessee when she learns that a recurring vision about an abducted woman took place in nearby Knoxville. This case takes her hiking up mountainsides and trekking through rough terrain to find a madman before he can harm this young woman.

In the fourth book, CHRISTMAS CRUISE, Lana boards a cruise ship haunted by dead women who were brutally murdered. While aboard the ship Lana has an experience that mentally injures her. Once she recovers, she’s more determined than ever to find the murderer.

Coming up next, book five, HAUNTED BY HER PAST: Lana is faced with the task of helping, Jena, a domestic abuse victim escape the ghost of her dead, abusive, ex-boyfriend.

Other Books Coming In This Series

In book six, DEMI’S SERIAL CASE, the town of Charleston has a serial killer and Demi requires Lana’s assistance. Demi is Lana’s best friend and a police detective. Lana helps Demi profile the killer who is believed to be a copy-cat killer (copying another serial killer’s modus operandi) of the man who has been in jail for about five years.

In book seven, DEATH COMES CALLING, Derek, Tony’s brother has moved back to Charleston after living in the middle east and Africa, treating serious injuries while associated with the organization, Doctors Without Borders. A ghost that died in his care begins to haunt him.

Book eight is of yet untitled, but the idea is that shortly after Demi is promoted to Police Captain, she will be involved in a shootout that leads to her being charged with murder. Lana will need to find the truth in order to save her friend. The problem, the dead spirit isn’t talking and he’s the only one that knows what truly happened.

If you like romantic suspense, be sure to also check out “Suspicious Minds” on Amazon here and “All this Time” on Amazon with this link.

About The Author

Kim Cox is an author of Paranormal, Mystery, Suspense and Romance. She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina with her chain saw artist husband, their West Highland White Terriers–Scooter and Harley, and a Yorkie mix, Candi. Kim is published in novels, short stories and articles.

Sign up for Kim’s Readers List for exclusive information, new releases, contests, giveaways, and free books.

My pleasure! I’ll definitely inviting her back for a guest blog. I need to download her books, too. They’re on my TBR list now at Goodreads but it will probably help their ranking if I download them now.

For all who haven’t read Kim’s books yet, I have read Haunted Hearts. I really enjoyed it. It is not scary or gory. It doesn’t have super human powers or anything that would be considered hard core sci-fi. It’s a great story about a female detective who has a case to solve. It just happens to be that her client is her great aunt, and she’s a ghost. The story will make you laugh, and you will finish the book with a good feeling inside. 🙂

I also read A Dream Come True, and my only complaint is that it was WAY too short. Then again, it’s a short story. lol! 😛

Get out or Die is my next book on my TBR as soon as I finish reading the book that I’m reading now. 🙂

Thanks so much for the insights into Haunted Hearts. It definitely sounds like something I’ll enjoy. I write hard sci-fi but enjoy reading most genres short of horror or erotica. It’s a nice break to read something a little different.

That is so true, Marcha. I love reading most genres. I don’t know if I’ve read any Sci-fi but I am planning too. I know I love the TV shows such as Falling Skies series that ended not too long ago. And I enjoyed the old Stargate shows. I did read a short story or short novella by one of my critique partners a few years ago. I just remembered that it was Sci-fi. I liked it.

I am in the process of adding a new beginning chapter to Haunted Hearts that shows a younger Lana when she first realizes her gift for communicating with ghosts. My manuscript evaluator felt I needed that. I had touched on it in the novella but didn’t elaborate. Haunted Hearts also had a word limit when I first wrote it, so an expansion that fits is a good thing.

I understand the impulse to go back and add things all too well. I had a writing coach tell me one time that you never finish a novel, you abandon it. There is always something else you could add. I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve revised the first one in my series.

Thank you so much, Yvette, for your kind words. 🙂 I don’t know at what point you read “A Dream Come True” but I did add a new ending as some said the ending was too abrupt. At the time I wrote it, it was for a contest and there was a word limit. I tend to write short stories too long and novels too shorts. Doesn’t make sense really, but that happens a lot. Keeping a short story short is very hard–mine are usually around 5K. Can’t remember what the limit was for that one at the time. One reviewer said they would like to see it turned into a full length novel. It could be done but I have so many other book ideas I don’t think I will ever get around to it.

I read a while back that it’s difficult to write a short story if you’re a novelist at heart. I tend to get into the characters too much and all the plot complications that come out of complex people interacting. To me, that’s so much of the fun. If I left it out it just wouldn’t seem right.

Kim, I might actually have been that reviewer! lol! I actually have a hard time reading a stand alone book because I never want to lose a book character friend (bcf) once I’ve made them. Short stories are torture for me because they tease me into liking a character and then I lose them forever. lol! My favorite series has over 20 books in it right now. I am a lifer when it comes to my bcf’s. lol!

Congratulations on your Spotlight honour, Kim! You’re very deserving of it for sure! I’m just catching up on your tour. Fantastic post and such a remarkable accomplishment. I really enjoyed Haunted Hearts and have another on my Kindle!
Thanks for the warm welcome, Marcha! 🙂

What a treat, a chance to hang with TWO of my favorite ladies, Marcha AND Kim. Marcha, you’ve performed a wonderful service so thoroughly introducing us to Kim’s stories, better than short blurbs at a retailer site. Kim, congratulations for achieving such an impressive ouevre so early in your to-be-long writing career. I’m having fun being seen hobnobbing with such esteemed writers and good-hearted souls! Woohoo!

Thank you for stopping by, Stephen. You always lift my spirits with your warm words. Stephen wrote a wonderful review for my short story, All For Love, that I will always cherish. I’m getting closer to your book that’s on my TBR too. Reading your comments and reviews, I know your books will be awesome. You have an elegance with your words.

They are not overly scary and definitely not gory. Most comments say they are light paranormal which I think is a good thing. Haunted Hearts has been said to have a little humor. Must be my quirky personality seeping through because I don’t really get comedy. A joke told may get a laugh from me an hour later when I finally get it. 😀

Yes, there are four more to come so far–for now that is all but not sure what the future holds for the series. I have plenty of ideas for books. Writing them is the hard part. My second book that I’ve yet to finish is a literary or women’s fiction set near the end of WWII. Hope to finish it one day. The very first will never see the light of day but the idea may lead to a different book. I have numerous other romantic suspense, contemporary romance, a historical western romance, an inspirational romance, and straight mystery book ideas as well. Too many ideas and too little time. 🙂

I know I have to read more of your stories Kim. Believe me, I have started your stories with “Haunted Hearts,” and I look forward to reading more. 🙂 Congratulations on your tour. Thank you Marcha for hosting her.

Thank you, Gwen! I enjoy anything mystery and paranormal. Most books have a little romance, so it’s only natural for a mystery buff to migrate to romantic suspense or paranormal mystery. There are so many options with both the mystery and the paranormal genres.

My first book, Suspicious Minds, started out as a short story in the mystery genre that was to include one of the 7 deadly sins for a Writers Digest contest. I had too much information for a short story, so it eventually reformed into a novel. After that, I learned about the romantic suspense genre and since I felt the book already had lots of romance in it, I changed it to a romantic suspense.

I’ve had that problem a lot, of not being able to write a short story because it turned into a novel. Now I find it’s fun to write “back stories” about the minor characters in the novel, so I guess I’m doing it in reverse. LOL.

Thank you, John! I loved writing the Lana Malloy Paranormal Mystery series. And to think it started with an anthology on 3 different holidays that a few of my critique partners wanted to work on together. Haunted Hearts and Get Out or Die were previously published in two different anthologies.